Kathy Reichs - Deadly Descisions

Claudel and I followed, picking our way through last year's vines and creepers, and slapping back branches still weeks from budding. The sun was well above the horizon now, and the trees threw long, spiderweb shadows across the soggy ground.

When we caught up to Rinaldi he was standing at the edge of a clearing, hands dangling in front, shoulders rounded like those of a male chimp about to put on a display. The look on his face was not reassuring.

"This place has changed, man. I don't remember so many trees. We used to come out here to light bonfires and get wasted."

"I don't care how you and your friends passed your summers, Frog. You're running out of time here. You're going to be doing twenty-five hard ones and we're all going to read about how they found you with a pipe up your ass on the shower room floor."

I'd never heard Claudel quite so colorful.

Rinaldi's jaw muscles bunched, but he said nothing. Though there had been frost that morning he wore only a black T-shirt and jeans. His arms looked thin and sinewy and goose bumps puckered the pale flesh.

He turned and walked to the middle of the clearing. On the right the land sloped gently to a small creek. Rinaldi cut through a stand of long-needle pines to the bank, looked in both directions, then headed upstream. Quickwater, Claudel, and I followed. Within twenty yards Rinaldi stopped and waved his scrawny arms at an expanse of bare earth. It lay between the stream and a mound of boulders, and was scattered with branches, plastic containers and cans, and the usual detritus thrown up by seasonal flooding.

"There's your fucking graves.

I looked at his face. It was composed now, the look of uncertainty once again replaced by cocky insolence.

"If that's all you're offering, Frog, that pipe has your name on it." Claudel.

"Don't fuck me over, man. It's been more than ten years. If the broad knows her shit, she'll find them."

As I surveyed the area Rinaldi had indicated, the bully pressed harder on my chest. More than ten years of seasonal flooding. There wouldn't be a single indicator. No depression. No insect activity. No modified vegetation. No stratigraphy. Nothing to hint at an underground cache.

Claudel looked a question at me. Behind him the stream burbled softly. Overhead a crow cawed and another answered.

"If they're here, I'll find them," I said with more confidence than I felt.

The cawing sounded like laughter.

By noon we'd cleared vegetation and debise from an area approximately fifty yards by fifty yards, based on Frog's hazy recollection of the grave locations. It turned out he'd never actually seen the bodies, but was going on "reliable information." According to gang lore the victims had been invited for a lawn party; then marched into the woods and shot in the head. Terrific.

I'd marked off a search grid, then set orange plastic stakes along the boundaries at five-foot intervals. Since bodies are rarely stashed below six feet, I'd requested a ground-penetrating radar unit with a 500 MHz antenna, a frequency effective at those depths. It had arrived within the hour.

Working with the radar operator, I'd dug a test pit outside the search area to allow assessment of density, moisture content, layer changes, and other soil conditions. We had refilled the hole, burying in it a length of metal rebar. The operator had then scanned the pit for control data.

He was completing the final tuning of his equipment when Frog got out of the Jeep and sidled over to me, followed closely by his guard. It was one of several forays he'd made, the sniper-free morning having allayed his anxiety.

"What the fuck is that?" he asked, indicating a set of devices that looked like a contraption from Back to the Future. Just then Claudel joined us.

"Frog, you could benefit from some new adjectives. Maybe get one of those calendars that shows you a different word every day."

"Fuck you."

In a way I appreciated the English expletives. They were like sounds of home in a foreign land.

I looked to see if Frog was merely cracking wise, but the pale green eyes suggested a genuine interest. O.K. Where he was going Frog wouldn't be having a lot of scientifically broadening experiences.

"It's a GPR system."

He looked blank.

"Ground-penetrating radar."

I pointed to a terminal plugged into the cigarette lighter of a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

"That's the GPR machine. It evaluates signals sent from an antenna, and produces a pattern on that screen."

I indicated a sledlike structure with an upright handle and a long, thick cable connecting it to the GPR box. "That's the antenna."

"Looks like a lawn mower.

"Yeah." I wondered what Frog knew about lawn care. "When an operator pulls the antenna across the ground it transmits a penetrating signal, then sends data to the GPR machine. The radar machine evaluates the strength and rebound time of the signal."

He looked as if he was with me. Though pretending disinterest, Claudel was also listening.

"If there is something in the soil, the signal is distorted. Its strength is affected by the size of the underground disturbance, and by the electrical properties at the upper and lower boundaries. The depth of the feature determines how long the signal takes to go down and back."

"So this thing can tell you where you've got a stiff?"

"Not a body specifically But it can tell you there's a subsurface disturbance, and it can provide information about its size and location."

Frog looked blank.

"When you dig a hole and put something in it, the spot is never the same as it was before. The fill may have less density, a different mix, or different electrical properties from the surrounding matrix."

True. But I doubted that wouid be the case here. Ten years of water seepage has a way of obliterating soil differences.

"And the thing that's been buried, whether it's a cable, unexploded ordnance, or a human body, will not send the same signal as the soil around it."

"Ashes to ashes. What if the corpse has oozed into tomorrow's drinking water?"

Good question, Frog.

"The decomposition of flesh can change the chemical composition and electrical properties of dirt, so even bones and putrefied corpses may show up.

May

At that moment the radar operator gave a sign indicating he was ready.

"Quickwater, you want to pull the sled?" I shouted.

"I'll do it." Claudel volunteered.

"O.K. Get one of the Ident guys to follow you to control the cable. It's not complicated. Start where the operator has thc antenna set up just outside the cleared area. When you pass the northernmost line of stakes press the remote button twice. It's on the handle. The signal will set the boundary for that transect. Drag the sled at about two-thirds normal walking pace, keeping your sweeps as straight as possible. Each time you pass an east-west stake, press the button once. When you get to the far end give another double signal to indicate the end of the transect. Then we'll haul the thing back and start a second sweep."

"Why can't we just go back and forth?"

"Because the printouts from adjacent transects won't be comparable if they're done from opposite directions. We'll do the whole area north to south, that's thirty sweeps, then repeat the procedure east to west.

He nodded.

"I'll stay with the operator and watch the screen. If we note a disturbance I'll holler and your partner can stake the spot."

An hour later the search was done and everyone was around the van, unwrapping sandwiches and popping sodas. Twelve blue stakes formed three squares inside the survey grid.

The results were better than I'd hoped. Readings from the third and thirteenth north-south transects showed disturbances with lengths and widths roughly equal. But it was the profile from the eleventh sweep that held my attention. I'd asked for hard copy, which I studied as I ate my bologna and cheese.